Provodnikov vs. Matthysse: The essence of prize fighting

By Boxing News - 04/16/2015 - Comments

IMG_0228(Photo credit: Golden Boy Promotions) By Gerardo Granados: A friend of mine asked me if there is any good fight to watch this weekend, so I told him he better not miss the Ruslan Provodnikov vs. Lucas Matthysse fight this Saturday night on April 18th at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino, in Verona, New York, USA. He replied that if I knew if the Terence Crawford fight against Thomas Dulorme was going to be aired on Saturday, then he said that he saw a great highlight video of Terence so he was going to watch him fight against a guy he couldn’t recall his name but the announcer said was a great boxer.

Both Provodnikov and Matthysse have a fan friendly boxing style to please the crowd and it is very difficult that this bout will disappoint fight fans around the world. Do the readers think that the Murphy laws can disagree when the Ruslan Provodnikov vs Tim Bradley fight was awarded the fight of the year by both Boxingnews24 and The Ring Magazine in 2013; and the Lucas Matthysse vs John Molina was a nominee by Boxingnews24 and the winner for The Ring Magazine in 2014.

When a good fight is arranged there is no need to hype it and the wait can be long if you are a hard core boxing fan. Yeah for sure the boxing purist will argue, as usual that the sweet science isn’t about two lions beating the stuffing out of each other but this is called prize fighting and at the amateurs you can delight at the purest boxing style of all.

I wonder if this bout has the potential to be listed next to Gatti-Ward, Castillo-Corrales, Hearns-Hagler and Pacquiao-Marquez epic battles, after all both Ruslan and Lucas have won epic battles in the past years.

Next Saturday 18 at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino, Verona, New York; two hungry lions will fight for supremacy. There is no fancy special belt and neither is a paper organization title involved in a bout that hardcore fight fans will acknowledge as the first major brawl of the year. Two prime top contenders will face each other and both like to engage and will do their best to destroy his opponent.

When Miguel Cotto announced his next opponent Daniel Geale it was not a real surprise to see him pick a guy that Gennady Golovkin previously knocked out. When Amir Khan announced to fight Chris Algieri next the boxing media gave it a full coverage but fight fans were displeased to see the poor matchmaking. But are those bouts worth of praise at boxing sites/forums? Why it is the boxing media has not given more coverage to a fight that won’t cost 99.99 notes on pay per view? When you see a so called big name hand pick an opponent so limited that he surely can defeat then fight fans should just looked away and don’t believe the hype.

The betting odds are really close but I am placing my bet on Lucas to win by split decision. The Siberian Rocky is a terrific pressure fighter but his weak defense make me believe Matthysse has the better boxing skills to control the fight at mid-long range to connect with quite ease but Ruslan does has enough power to hurt him and his heart won’t allow him to quit so it will not be an easy task for Lucas.

An epic fight isn’t based on hype or the fame of the boxers involved it is based on the will of a lion to engage and take the risks to destroy his prey.

Do the readers agree that the Provodnikov vs Matthysse type of fights represent the essence of prizefighting?



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